Program DSPE Conference 2025

But what happens when Artificial Intelligence reaches beyond the factory floor into engineering, planning, and design? Tools like ChatGPT and AI-driven CAD systems are already transforming how knowledge is applied — accelerating workflows while also raising fundamental questions about which roles remain essential. In his keynote, Carlo van de Weijer explores how automation and AI are reshaping the future of work in high-tech manufacturing. He provides clear, thought-provoking insights into which jobs are likely to remain, which may disappear, and how leadership must evolve to stay ahead in an environment that is changing faster than ever.

But in our experience, AI/ML is not the silver bullet for every challenge and it is also not a simple off-the-shelf procedure of throwing in your data and collecting the answers. Solving specific industry challenges starts from a very good understanding of the application domain, often with very specific constraints, as well as a smart use of the available data and its quality. From there it is true engineering to develop a solution that does the job.

In this talk we share our practitioner’s view of applying AI – and in a broader sense mathematics – to industry. Showcasing some of our partnership developments with ASML, TFS, and NXP, we will present an overview of various industrial applications of AI, ranging from real-time inline metrology for semicon, to analyzing complex cell and tissue images for bio sciences, and applying sensor fusion techniques for robust detection in automotive. We will also zoom in on the recurring theme of having limited data and how to deal with this, e.g. by using synthetic data or leveraging foundation models. In addition, we will highlight the importance of combining domain/prior knowledge with AI/ML to arrive at better solutions, e.g. through Bayesian machine learning or physics-informed machine learning.

We will take a look at the various ways that Generative AI, beyond large language models, is being used to learn and understand ‘’the language of nature’’. We’ll delve into specific case studies using these technologies, showcasing how Thermo Fisher Scientific leverages AI in general and Generative AI in particular to bring a new perspective to applications and operation of electron microscopes.